President’s Message

It’s been a long summer, but I’d like to welcome you back for another fine season of great presentations and topics about our favorite subject, the American Revolutionary War. We continue the journey into our 18th year as an organization.

In developing the yearly program, we look to offer diverse topics including revolutionary leaders, battles and military tactics, special events, as well as local topics … from very knowledgeable speakers who are also quality presenters.

We are excited to offer this year’s program including presentations on Thomas Sumter; the Revolution in the Caribbean, the Battle of the Clouds; the Conway Cabal, the Court Martial of Charles Lee, the Albany Militia, Military Leadership; the PA Frontier and impact of the Valley Forge encampment on the local area.

We are pleased to announce two new Board members, Bill Quain as Treasurer and Tom McAndrew as a Member at large. Bill and Tom join current board members Jim Christ, Vice President; Suzanne Pearson, Secretary; Kevin Godshall, Member at large and myself. I especially want to thank outgoing treasurer Dan Kinnamon for many years of outstanding service to ARRTOP.

Last year’s book award recipients (Nathaniel Philbrick ‘s In the Hurricane’s Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown and Colin Calloway’s The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation ) were very honored to receive the ARRTOP award and our book committee (Tom McAndrew, Kathleen Flanagan and Nancy Webster) is ready to start the evaluating 2019 candidates.

We also want to mention our Facebook page “American Revolution Round Table of Philadelphia”. We are proud to announce we have over 4,700 people following us on this page (1,300 more than last year!). We post to this page EVERY DAY, and we also include our upcoming lectures that you can share them with your friends and give us an idea of attendance.

We are proud to be able to offer the ARRTOP experience at very affordable price of $3 per lecture which you can’t beat anywhere. The Board of Directors are always looking for ways to increase membership. To make paying dues easier we now have the option to use PAYPAL on our ARRTOP.org website to accept payments from Credit and Debit cards, as well as PayPal accounts.

We look forward to another great season of camaraderie and the return of our friends to the meetings. Be sure to keep in touch with our newly revised web-site ARRTOP.org, and ourFacebook Page to stay informed about upcoming presenters and other news. Also, be sure to bring a friend!

Pay your Dues ONLINE!!

Remember: Dues are $30 per calendar year and your dues are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.

Scoogi’s Italian Kitchen & Bar

Next Presentation: May 18th ONLINE

The ARRTOP board has elected to hold an online ARRTOP meeting on May 18th, at 7:30 pm EDT. This will be a presentation by Serena Zabin on her recently published book, The Boston Massacre: A Family History. The meeting will last about an hour, with the bulk of it Ms. Zabin’s presentation, followed by a Q&A session.

We will be holding the meeting by Zoom. In the coming week, we’ll send out additional details to prepare all members for the meeting. In addition, on May 17th, we’ll e-mail out an invitation to the meeting, which will include a link and a password for you to connect to the meeting.

If you’d like to read Ms. Zabin’s book in advance of the meeting, you can purchase it from Amazon at: